


Empty Ocean

by Statementends (Blueberryshortcake)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: BTHB, Gen, The Lonely - Freeform, You can scream all you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 14:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18813190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueberryshortcake/pseuds/Statementends
Summary: Peter strands Jon in the fog. Jon has to make a choice.





	Empty Ocean

“You can scream all you like, Jon. Not even Elias will hear you.” Peter grinned. He gave a cheery wave as the world around him went white with salty mist. He barely caught Martin’s cry before the Institute disappeared.

The fog rolled all around him cold and clinging. He was on the beach, more of a little island really, the waves drawing up to his feet soaking him. All around him an endless rolling sea, barely visible behind the fog.

“LUKAS!!” He shouted, enraged. “I’m going to find my way out of here! I won’t let you do this. Lukas!!!!!”

The fog pressed against him, seeping into him.

No Basira, or Daisy, or Melanie.

No Martin.

Alone with himself with no one for company. Just a tape recorder laying beside his feet being licked by salty spray.

Icy rain fell in sheets.

“LUKAS!” He yelled again. The fog seemed to swallow the volume of it.

He was shaking with cold and anger… and fear.

He had never been afraid of being alone. Not that he had never felt an ache of loneliness, but he had never really… enjoyed people. He had only come to appreciate them after…

He thought of Tim and Sasha. Of Basira and Melanie’s distance. Martin being… gone. The warmth that came from Daisy reaching out.

He had lost some of them. Loved them when it was too late to make a difference, but this time he wouldn’t fail. He would protect who he had left.

He felt tears stream down his cheeks. He wasn’t losing anyone again. Not again.

He started screaming out into the fog willing there to be a response, but with each passing moment he felt further and further removed from them. The trust and friendship that they had been building a dim flickering candle against the fog.

He needed an anchor to pull himself out, but this wasn’t like the coffin.

He had Daisy in the coffin.

And although he had been crushed, and scared, and desperate… that had comforted him.

This place held no comfort of human life. He was alone.

The fog pulled out the warmth of that memory, and only left him with the dirt. He tried to think of Basira and could only recall her mistrust and muted anger. Could only grasp Melanie’s rage. Helen’s desperation and the being that call itself Michael’s strange look of twisted betrayal. Daisy’s anger. He could only remember with clarity the feeling of knowing Sasha James was dead and Tim Stoker was dead, and Martin was gone, and that was his fault. That they may have made choices, but being by his side had caused them to suffer.

He didn’t deserve their warmth.

He was alone. Left with himself.

The Archivist categorized all of it. The empty beach, the cold weather, the weight of knowing no one would come for him, no one would want him, and that he didn’t deserve anyone.

He wondered if this place could really hold him. Closed his eyes. He continued to scream, but maybe it wasn’t out loud anymore. Maybe it was inside. Jonathan Sims screaming as the Archivist opened his Eyes and looked out over the endless empty ocean, Knowing there was no one.

A shiver ran up his spine.

The Archivist’s…his own detachment made things all the worse. Separated him further from humanity. A monster floating in the endless sea of knowledge, letting the human drown.

Maybe that was better.

His throat was sore from screaming now. No one was coming. The Archivist could survive this. Jonathan Sims… probably not.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let go of the dimming candle he had left.

His… friends…

Right now he could only remember the points of how lonely they had made him feel. The Archivist dissected these feelings. Elias had once said that I would drop them when they weren’t needed anymore. Part of me… feels that. That clinging will only make me weak at this point. The power of loneliness is need. If I don’t need them… then this place has no power.

He laughed, realizing that he was narrating to the tape recorder. Never truly alone. Although distant, he could still feel the Eye’s endless stare.  

“If I want to save them… then I have to give in, don’t I? The more I cling the more power Lukas has over me. I have to let them go if I have any chance of getting back.”

He took a few panicked breaths.

He tried to think of Georgie, but could only picture her as she left his hospital room, disappointed in him again. The Admiral, affectionate but not his. His Grandmother who resented the circumstances of raising him.

“I don’t forgive you, but thank you for this.”

“I always wanted my friends to call me Gerry.”

“I see you!”

“Please stop finding me.”

“GET OFF ME!!”

“You died.”

“If this really is a second chance, please try to take it. But I don’t think that it is.”

“Yeah. And I’m not gonna let it happen again.”

His throat was raw, screaming old wounds into the empty sea. He wouldn’t be calm. It would not be the Archivist that would exorcise them from him.

He was angry. So  _angry_. 

He felt the ax in his hands as it struck clean through the web table. The taste of smoke the night Leitner died. Heard the click of the detonator in Tim’s hand. The smell or rot in Melanie’s leg. Felt the crush of the dirt with no pull to draw him back home. Remembered the old paranoia directed at all the wrong people. Remembered opening the trapdoor to Jane Prentiss.

And he stopped.

Jon gasped for breath. Rubbed his eyes with his soaking sleeve.

All his plans were terrible.

All his instincts were wrong.

It was them. They had saved him. Every time. It was  _them_.

He let himself fall to his knees, the sand cushioning his hard drop. Shakily he reached over and grabbed the tape recorder.

“Statement of Jonathan Sims,” He rasp, throat sore. “The Archivist. Concerning his own humanity. Recorded on the day the world is supposed to end. Statement begins: 

Peter Lukas thinks that I am trapped here. He thinks that with me out of the way there will be no one to stop him… no one to save Martin. Peter Lukas thinks that I am alone.” He chuckles at this. “The Eye won’t let me be alone of course. I’m always being watched. Vigilo, audio, opperior. Watching. Listening. Waiting. It’s rather sinister with all I know about the organization now, but there is wisdom in the Magnus Institute’s crest. This time, I will heed it. Peter Lukas thinks that I am alone. And here, I might believe him. I feel… forsaken, and the Beholding gives me no comfort, although it never has. The Eye will not save me. It watches, listens, waits. I will do the same. I… trust them. I… I love them. I can’t escape this place. Not by myself–”

The fog started to pull away. The sand became solid under his knees.

He watched for Basira’s shining light through the fog. Listened for Melanie’s call to him. He waited for Daisy’s firm grip on his shoulder.

Hope. Hope had always been the anchor. He reached out for Martin’s hand.

“But they’ll save me.” Jon finished kneeling on the floor of the Magnus Institute. He gripped Martin’s hand.

“Jon!” Tears slipped down Martin’s cheeks. 

Jon grinned viciously at Peter Lukas’ shocked face.

He shakily stood, Martin helping him to his feet.

“Now, Jon.” Peter took a step back. “You need to understand. I’m trying to save us. Hear me out.”

Jon closed his eyes basking in the warmth, then opened them. Then another eye. Then another.

And he was Jonathan Sims. And he was going to protect his friends.  

“You can scream all you want, Peter.”


End file.
